Unlike in the cases of its neighbors Bosnia and Croatia, the Yugoslavian government made no extended attempt to reconquer Slovenia when it seceded in 1991. The military conflict was ten days long and created less than 100 total casualties. One colonel in the Yugoslav National Army has been indicted by the Slovene government for his […]
Foreign Policy and Fund for Peace have published the 2008 Failed States Index. The main goal of the Index is to assess the vulnerability of states to slide towards further violence and chaos. There are twelve indicators of state vulnerability, which can be found here. At the top of the Index (most failed) is Somalia, […]
What a great yarn! A smart, successful, committed energy entrepreneur comes along with a solid project to provide enough zero-emission, renewable energy to supply, on a good day, all the stationary power needs of Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and, if you had plug-in vehicles, a good bit of the surface transportation needs as […]
Continuing with the theme of the last post, here is a video of North Korea destroying a water cooling tower at a nuclear facility as part of the recent nuclear disclosure agreement with the U.S. and the other six-party countries. U.S. State Department officials and IAEA representatives were invited to observe the event. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/qe20Q1SPzew” […]
“Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity – a steadily better life. If peace is to be […]
Dear all, I’m on freelance assignment in Georgia. I managed to interview Georgia's Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze and asked him to explain why Georgia passed legislation that lowers the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12. Human Rights Watch (HWR) issued a report earlier this month and made an appeal to the Georgian government to […]
It is natural, at a time of low approval ratings for the United States overseas, to ask again whether it made sense in 1999 to dismantle the U.S. Information Agency and move parts of it into the State Department. As Melinda points out in her post (below), John McCain has weighed in on the subject, […]
345 suspects, of which an estimated 290 where adult women charged as prostitutes, have been arrested in a child-sex sting. How many of the women arrested where actually victims of trafficking is unknown. In addition some 21 children where rescued as a result of the raids. Over a period of five days, in 16 cities, the FBI, have […]
According to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, the Hamas-led government in Gaza threatened to take measures against anyone who violates the ceasefire. This came in response to a rocket attack launched by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades against the Israeli town of Sderot. Hamas claims that the Al-Aqsa Brigades, an armed wing of the group's political […]
I have mentioned before on this blog the newly-released Pew Global Attitudes Project's global poll on views of the United States. Now they have produced this handy interactive map that overlays not only views of the US but also nations’ views of the US Presidential Candidates. Above is a picture of the map. To enjoy […]
After months of multilateral negotiations with the U.S. and other countries, North Korea today publicly detailed the extent of their long secret nuclear program and President Bush quickly reciprocated by removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism (Washington Post – North Korea Details Nuclear Program): President Bush today lifted some […]
I’d like to begin this blog about the U.S. Role by using this first post to look back to a time when the U.S. aided a former enemy and helped lay the foundation for the post-WWII era in world affairs (International Herald Tribune – Germany remember Berlin airlift on 60th anniversary): Germany on Thursday […]
(photo courtesy of Kaveh Sardari) Dr. James Hansen is both an icon and a working scientist at the forefront of global warming research. He's a world-renowned physicist and an impassioned activist. He's soft spoken and hard hitting. Hansen is the director of an important US government lab, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and has […]
The New York Times reported in an interesting article from Paris June 17 that Barack Obama's political success in the United States is helping to give hope, and a new sense of identity, to blacks in France. The report erred, however, by referring twice to incidents of vandalism and rioting in France with the clear, […]
Presidential Candidate Barack Obama still has the support of a majority of American Muslims, but a New York Times article from June 24, 2008 questions whether there is a "disconnect between Mr. Obama's message of unity and his campaign strategy." One reason for questioning his sincerity is Obama's failure to visit a single mosque during […]